Alex Letts

Alex loves great ideas. He was educated at Oxford where he read Classics. That might not have seemed a natural way into the glamorous world of advertising in the Saatchi heydays, but it served him well when dealing with the Greek ads on the Kentucky Fried Chicken account! Early on he decided he wanted to be an entrepreneur and in 1988 he set up the SMI Group, which went on to become the largest business-to-business advertising agency in Europe and 2nd largest in the world. He sold the agency to the French giant Publicis Groupe after it had become pre-eminent in understanding the potential of internet and technology. In early 2000 he founded RI3K, the reinsurance trading platform for the Lloyd's of London insurance market. The platform went on to become the market leader in global commercial reinsurance trading, with billions of premium transacted. During the 10 years that he ran RI3K Alex raised over £40m for the project. RI3K was sold to the Qatari Financial Centre in 2010 and Alex left the company to found Ffrees. Alex's vision for Ffrees has been to create the first digital alternative to traditional banking. He wanted to create a platform and brand that was trusted by families and which would help them with their struggle against the tough economic climate they faced. Above all, he wanted to get them a better deal, not just in their banking, but in every aspect of their finances. Ffrees is the first current account that pays its customers as they spend. It saves up rewards which earn bonuses that are better than bank current account interest rates, and it has a wide range of retail based and financial services rewards which are added to the family savings each time they spend. Alex believes that Frees is the new model for the way families manage their current accounts and family finances.